Guangzhou E-Power

Eleven wins to open the 2024 China League Two season. Guangzhou E-Power finished on 62 points, having scored 50 and conceded 17, in a division it had only been admitted to that February — the place came free when other clubs folded.

The club exists because something else stopped existing. Guangzhou R&F, later Guangzhou City, was wound up in 2023; registration papers for the successor were filed on 23 March that year.

Li Bing, coach through the promotion season, was named the division's best. He had a 17-year-old from the academy, Tang Tianyi, scoring nine times across the campaign — an unusual return for a first season in senior football, and one the club made a point of. Promotion followed, and third place out of sixteen in China League One in 2025.

Home is Yuexiushan, capacity 18,000, and the shirts are yellow over black shorts, the crest a leopard's head on a shield.

What the club inherited along with the players and the paperwork is the other half of the city. In the R&F years the fixture against Guangzhou FC — Evergrande as was — carried the name of the Canton Derby, and it was the only match of the season either set of supporters marked on the calendar in advance. Guangzhou FC has since fallen out of the top flight itself. Whether the derby returns depends on both of them climbing back to the same division.